


Our Daughters' Daughters

by shewhoguards



Category: Mary Poppins (1964)
Genre: Gen, trick - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 09:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8322841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/pseuds/shewhoguards
Summary: Mrs Banks could feel that something is missing in the nursery but she struggled to recall what it was.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



> This may owe a little to the book Mary Poppins as well as the film one! I did love your prompt about Jane going missing but couldn't imagine that Mary Poppins would not cover her tracks.

Mrs Banks had just got back from one of her meetings when she noticed. Until then, no sign of anything wrong had crossed her mind, indeed she was very cheerfully humming to herself as she walked through the door.

It was the line about her daughters' daughters that did it, some faint unease penetrating through her good mood. Unable to quite put her finger on what had caused it she walked up to the nursery and stood for a moment, watching at the door. It certainly seemed peaceful enough in there; Mary Poppins sat calmly darning a sock while on the floor Michael was playing with his toy soldiers. Each other toy sat neatly in its place – things always seemed so much less chaotic when Mary Poppins was about.

And yet that feeling that something – someone – was not where they should be refused to leave her. She hummed the line to herself again, feeling the memory scratching at theedge of her mind in a faint far-off way. It was as though she were trying to remember a dream; she could capture the faint image of a child in a yellow coat, of blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and little else.

She asked doubtfully, because even the question seemed ridiculous. “Mary Poppins, didn’t I used to have another child? A daughter?”

Michael looked up at her words, an almost desperate hope on his face. “You _do_ remember!” he exclaimed, his voice filled with relief. Soldiers were abandoned as he jumped to his feet, scattered this way and that with little care for the neatness of the nursery. “I tried to tell you but you couldn’t hear me! We went through the picture and the horse--”

He fell silent as Mary Poppins rose to her feet. “Are you suggesting,” she began, her voice cold with anger, “that you used to have another child, and that I should be a poor enough Nanny to _lose_ that other child without you ever remembering a thing about it?”

“Well,” said Mrs Banks hesitantly, because now she came to think about it, it did sound silly. “I just—I thought I remembered…”

Mary Poppins fairly quivered with fury. “I have never been so insulted,” she said sharply. “I should give my notice immediately at such at questioning of my competence! If you have such a poor idea of my work then--”

“Oh no!” Mrs Banks said hastily, because while the memory of another child (Jenny? Joan?) still tugged at her mind the memory of life before Mary Poppins was much more clear and vivid. Ellen would give notice again, George would come home angry – yes, the home was certainly a much happier place with Mary Poppins there. Or at least, it was a much calmer place, and didn’t that mostly amount to the same thing? “Don’t do that, Mary Poppins! I didn’t mean—that is to say, I’m sure everything is absolutely fine. It was just a thought.”

And after all, it was a very silly thought. She looked again over the nursery; the rocking horse over by the wall, the blocks piled neatly in a corner, even the toy soldiers on the floor as Michael sank sullenly back down and started to line them up once more. No sign of any girl’s toys – indeed, where would another child even sleep? There was only one little bed.

But Mary Poppins was still glaring at her, still with that insulted expression. “In fact, you have been doing such a sterling job that I was intending to discuss your wages with George this evening,” Mrs Banks tried hopefully and if the woman didn’t seem grateful she was at least mollified, sitting back down and picking up her darning work. “Some parents,” she told her work darkly, “don’t know how lucky they are.”

Mrs Banks felt herself flush guiltily and wondered, not for the first time, how it was that Mary Poppins could so easily reduce her to the level of a naughty little girl. She stared around the nursery blankly for a moment and then, on the pretext of helping Michael pick up his soldiers, sank down next to him on the floor.

“It _was_ true, wasn’t it?” she whispered to him pleadingly, not daring to have Mary Poppins hear and yet needing that confirmation from someone. “You _did_ have a sister?”

Michael looked first at Mary Poppins, checking that she did not appear to be listening. He pressed a warning finger to his lips before he nodded silently towards the coat-rack.

There, like the memory of a child who had never been, hung a straw hat circled with red ribbon.


End file.
